Chapter 17

The Swordsmanship Genius Possessed by a God — Chapter 17

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Splaaash!

Blood gushed upward from a split head.

After cutting down three Dorvi with a single stroke, Allen spun his body around.

Stab. A vampire bat swooping down from the ceiling was impaled on his sword. He then swung the blade with all his strength, severing the head of an earth merfolk that had been targeting his legs from the ground.

Whooooosh!

Allen did not stop.

He raced through the darkness among the monsters, cutting them down again and again.

As he stepped backward to evade a charging Bristle—

Thud!

A Dorvi lunging from the opposite direction collided with the Bristle and was sent flying.

The Bristle, having struck an unexpected target, whipped its head around.

At that moment—

Stab.

Squeeeeeal!

Allen's sword flew like a flash of light and pierced the Bristle between its eyes.

“This brings back memories.”

Long ago.

After running away from his family, Allen had once sought out the Transcendent of the Demonic Realm in search of a way to become stronger.

Far more monsters inhabited the Demonic Realm than were present here. The strength of the monsters that appeared there was also beyond comparison.

He still vividly remembered fighting in the darkness for three days and nights without being able to eat or sleep properly.

“You're asking if there's a way to become stronger without mana?”

Of course, all of that had been training imposed by the master he met in the Demonic Realm.

Sairon, the Transcendent of the Demonic Realm.

Allen had trained under him for many years.

“If you don't have teeth, use your gums. If you don't have mana, train your body and sharpen your senses.”

“I've continued training my body. But these senses... How am I supposed to sharpen them?”

“You already know.”

Hearing Allen's concern, Sairon had answered as though he were asking something painfully obvious.

“Experience situations where your life is at stake. In real combat.”

Thud.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the pitch-black darkness.

Stone-Armored Golem.

An intermediate-level monster with skin as hard as rock and a massive body reaching three meters in height.

Its fist came crashing down toward Allen's head.

Bang!

The floor shattered, sending fragments flying in every direction. The Stone-Armored Golem's fist had struck nothing but the unfortunate ground.

In that brief instant, Allen had already climbed onto the golem's arm.

Whooom.

The sword energy gathered around Allen's blade shimmered blue.

With the sword energy illuminating the darkness, Allen's figure shot toward the Stone-Armored Golem's head.

First Form, Behold.

Slash!

The sword energy split the skin that was as hard as rock. The flesh concealed beneath it was sliced open, and blood flowed out.

Standing atop the decapitated Stone-Armored Golem, Allen muttered,

“This hardly counts as a life-threatening situation, does it?”

If Sairon had seen this, he would probably have said something like this.

What was so dangerous about dancing around with a sword among a bunch of small fry?

Flash.

Allen leaped down from the Stone-Armored Golem and plunged back into the midst of the monsters.

Slash!

Blood spurted from the bodies of the monsters he cut apart.

“Huff, huff.”

Allen's breathing gradually grew heavier as he continued moving without rest.

Having gone straight from fighting that mongrel demonic human into battling more than a hundred monsters, he hadn't had a moment to recover.

As he briefly caught his breath, Allen's eyes surveyed the darkness.

There were roughly twenty monsters remaining.

‘This should be enough.’

Screech.

For the first time since the battle began, Allen's feet came to a halt.

As he stood in place and caught his breath, monsters charged toward him from every direction.

One of the fastest Dorvi thrust its fangs right up to Allen's face.

Less than a handspan separated them.

At the very moment the Dorvi was about to bite off Allen's entire head—

Whoooooosh.

Allen's sword stirred the wind.

His final technique, into which he poured all his remaining mana.

Celestial Star Style, Second Form.

Rainstorm.

Splaaash!

The body of the Dorvi baring its fangs right before him was torn to pieces.

Behind it, the monsters charging alongside it were sliced apart all at once.

Whoooooosh!

Monster blood surged toward the dungeon ceiling as fragments of their corpses scattered in every direction.

Just as the technique's name suggested, the monsters' blood poured down like a rainstorm.

The only place untouched by the falling blood was a small space surrounding Allen.

Every remaining monster had been swept away in a single instant.

“Huff, haaaaah.”

Immediately after unleashing his final technique, Allen breathed heavily.

With all his strength exhausted, he sank to the floor.

An empty sensation washed over him as his mana reserves were completely depleted. His breathing was labored from moving and swinging his sword without rest.

But he didn't feel particularly bad.

No.

If anything, he felt like laughing.

For the first time since returning to the past, he felt as though he had fought a proper battle.

Sitting on the floor with a broad smile, Allen shouted at the top of his lungs.

“That was incredible!”

...credible,...credible,...ble, ble, ble...

Allen's voice echoed repeatedly throughout the cave.

At that moment, as though celebrating Allen's victory, the extinguished torches burst into flame once more.

Whoosh. The cave was brightly illuminated again. At the same time, the monster corpses and pools of blood scattered across the floor turned into black ash and dispersed.

Amid it all, Allen smiled with satisfaction.

‘And this is only the Second Star.’

The swordsmanship Allen had learned was the Celestial Star Style.

It was the same swordsmanship his father practiced, one that only direct descendants of Vishken could learn.

If all the countless swordsmanship styles scattered across the continent were lined up like the stars in the sky, the Celestial Star Style would stand at the very front.

Allen's current level was the Second Star.

It was a level he had naturally reached while making the mana that had lain dormant within his body his own.

Of course, it was already an incomparably greater achievement than anything he had accomplished in the past.

When he had suffered from the Curse of Mana Deprivation, he couldn't use any techniques that required mana, and even advancing his level had been impossible.

‘Father has mastered this completely?’

Even among the successive heads of Vishken, only a handful of swordsmen had fully mastered the Celestial Star Style.

And without exception, those who had mastered it, including Axion Vishken, had risen to become the greatest swordsman on the continent.

To think that in his previous life, he had learned such swordsmanship without being able to put it to use.

It had been like hanging a diamond, not merely a pearl, around a pig's neck.

But things were different now.

Although he had only reached the Second Star, he was already able to execute new techniques.

As his level advanced and he learned additional techniques, he would undoubtedly grow stronger and stronger.

“Ugh.”

Having finished savoring the moment, Allen rose to his feet again.

Was it because his mana had been completely exhausted?

His thirst for elixirs felt stronger than ever.

Furthermore, knowing that another fragment lay beyond that iron door, he couldn't bring himself to remain seated.

‘It's definitely in there.’

As Allen approached the door, his heart began pounding harder.

It was a sensation similar to when he had discovered the fragment at the family estate.

The difference was that his heart wasn't reacting quite as strongly as it had back then.

Allen pushed the iron door with his hand and opened it wide.

The interior had been pitch-black when he first opened it, but the moment the door swung open, lights appeared along both sides of the ceiling.

Apparently, the room had been designed to illuminate itself automatically whenever someone entered.

Whoosh.

“...Ah.”

Allen exclaimed in admiration at the sight before him.

It wasn't a particularly large space.

Beyond the iron door stood another altar.

Various kinds of artifacts were neatly arranged on either side of the altar.

Gold coins and jewels lay scattered across the floor, all of them gleaming softly in the torchlight.

It was a sight that startled even Allen, who was rarely surprised by anything.

‘This is even better than I heard.’

There was far more treasure than he had been told.

He had come seeking the Flower of Stars, but the other artifacts were also quite remarkable.

Above all, what pleased him most was the thoughtfulness of whoever had created this place.

In one corner of the altar, on the right, lay a small pouch.

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an old leather pouch. But Allen could sense a faint trace of mana coming from its opening.

Allen bent down and picked it up.

It was light, as though there were nothing inside.

But when he opened it, the interior was completely inconsistent with its outward size. Even when he inserted his arm, he couldn't reach the bottom.

‘A spatial expansion pouch.’

A magical artifact used for carrying large and heavy objects.

The value of this pouch was incomparable to that of ordinary artifacts.

Even the Quin family, a family of mages comparable to Vishken, regarded spatial storage pouches as precious treasures.

Of course, no matter how valuable a spatial storage pouch was, it wasn't the most important thing here.

Allen raised his head and examined the altar.

Treasure was all well and good, but Allen was searching for something else in this place.

A small box resting atop the altar.

‘The Flower of Stars.’

That box contained the Flower of Stars, the very reason Allen had come here.

Under normal circumstances, he would have opened the box immediately and taken possession of the Flower of Stars.

After all, an elixir as potent as the Flower of Stars would allow him to gain an enormous amount of mana all at once upon consuming it.

But at this moment, the first thing to capture Allen's attention was not the Flower of Stars.

‘That's it.’

The box containing the Flower of Stars.

Embedded directly in its center was a small red bead.

Allen reached out and removed the bead from the box.

The moment he held the bead, which shimmered faintly like a jewel, the pounding of his heart grew steadily stronger.

‘It's much smaller.’

The third fragment Allen had discovered was far smaller than the ones he already knew.

The bead he had taken from the Demon King had been about the size of a piece of candy. The fragment at the family estate had been somewhat smaller, roughly the size of a fingernail.

And this fragment was only about thirty percent the size of the one at the family estate.

‘The fragment at the family estate was the third, and this is the eleventh. Could the fragments become smaller as their numbers increase?’

It might have been a coincidence, but it was possible. His heart had indeed reacted more weakly than when he encountered the fragment at the family estate.

Allen's eyes remained fixed on the fragment.

Although treasures lay scattered everywhere, including the Flower of Stars, Allen could see nothing but the fragment.

It even made him wonder whether he had come here for something other than the Flower of Stars.

‘Perhaps I returned to the past to find this.’

He had been pondering it all along.

Why had he returned to the past?

What was the true identity of the unknown entity, and what purpose did it have in sending him back? Why had the demons searched so desperately for these fragments?

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't find the answers.

To discover those answers, he had no choice but to gather the fragments, just as the demons had done.

But what should he do once he found a fragment? Should he simply be satisfied with collecting them?

No.

‘That won't be enough.’

Even now, whenever he woke from sleep, he remembered.

He remembered what kind of being the Demon King had been.

Even if he fully mastered the Celestial Star Style, could he surpass that monster? If so, why hadn't his father been able to defeat it?

Ordinary methods would never be enough to surpass that monster.

And Allen had already finished thinking about what he needed to do.

Slowly.

Allen brought the hand holding the fragment toward his mouth.

There was no reason to hesitate.

After all, the very reason he was here now was that he had swallowed one of these mysterious beads in the first place.

Gulp.